


Oracle Tim?Oracle Tim.

by robinlikeitshot



Series: DC Prompt Fills [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Age Swap, Damian Wayne is Nightwing, Damian Wayne is Robin, Getting Together, M/M, Paralysis, Reverse Robins, Tim Drake Is Batboy, Tim Drake is Oracle, good dad Bruce Wayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:00:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinlikeitshot/pseuds/robinlikeitshot
Summary: Robin and Batboy, the city's most iconic duo. Time may have changed them, but even as Nightwing and Oracle, they find their way back to each other's sides.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Damian Wayne
Series: DC Prompt Fills [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078127
Comments: 4
Kudos: 146





	Oracle Tim?Oracle Tim.

**Author's Note:**

> marudny-robot said:  
> Congratulations for 100 followers! For the prompts, may I suggest some reverse robin au with oracle!Tim and damitim there somewhere? If damitim is not your thing, feel free to ignore the last part :>
> 
> thank you!!its a definite trip lol. admittedly ive never written damitim before, but i decided to give it a shot for this au~ i had a lot of fun writing it, and i hope u like it!!  
> many thanks to fireandphoenix for the beta!

"What are you doing here?"

Tim raises a brow, looking over his shoulder at Robin. "Following a lead. What are _you_ doing here?"

"Taking over the case," Damian replies haughtily. "Batman wishes to have someone more capable handling the situation."

Tim scoffs. "Why'd he send you then?" Side-stepping the boy's lunge, he races to the edge of the roof he'd been running surveillance on. "You weren't fast enough to catch that robber last week, what makes you think you'll be able to catch _me_ ," he taunts, jumping off the ledge when the older boy growls and pulls out his katana.

"Get back here, Batboy!" he shouts, following.

"Is that," Tim lands on a roof and rolls into a run, exhilaration drawing out a grin, "Is that a concession?"

Damian snarls behind him, making Tim pick up his pace as he hops down a fire escape, "Never."

"Too bad, then," he pants, throwing himself into an open window to land on the dusty floor of an empty warehouse, because Robin may be faster and stronger, but Gotham is _Tim's_ home, and he knows every nook and cranny of the city like the back of his hand. "Because you're about to eat dirt, boy wonder!"

The boy probably would have replied if he hadn't just set off Tim's dirt trap, getting a face full of dust. Tim laughs at his affronted expression, snapping a picture with his camera.

Damian's expression becomes even more sour, if that was possible. "You are distracting me from the case, Batboy. Even I didn't think you'd let petty squabbles come between Justice."

Tim just grins and jumps, and the floor gives way beneath them. Damian yelps, but still lands in a perfect stance on the floor beneath, facing none other than Tim's lead, knocked out and being tied up by Batboy.

"You—you—" the boy splutters.

"Yes, Robin?" Tim teases, fluttering his eyelashes.

Damian huffs, turning around and storming off to find the exit.

~~~

Damian sighs, allowing his leg to swing back and forth from the ledge he'd perched on. Bludhaven looks even gloomier than ever tonight, as if reflecting his mood.

Hell, he wants to stab something. The night had been quiet, with only one mugger that he’d had quickly incapacitated and dropped off with the relevant authorities, and nothing at all for Damian to let his frustrations out on.

The next swing causes his boot to slam into the concrete of the building, but he doesn't make a sound.

"Careful there, Nightwing. Somebody might even think you're upset."

Damian spins around, domino's widening when he sees Batboy step out of the shadows to gracefully sit down next to him. "What are you doing here?" he asks, cursing the evident confusion in his voice. _Don't show weakness. To anyone._

Timothy just hums, one gloved hand shifting to rest on top of his own. It feels warm, much too warm in Bludhaven's chilly winter. "I missed you, and I didn't think you'd be coming around to Gotham anytime soon."

The words are just accusatory enough to make Damian's hackles rise. "Father was the one who kicked me out—and besides, I didn't think you'd get too lonely when you're already buddy-buddy with the new Robin." Damian had almost wanted to throw up when he'd first seen the tabloid, front page covered in an image of Timothy in his Batboy costume standing next to Todd in _Damian's_ suit, facing off Poison Ivy together.

"Bruce didn't kick you, Damian. And what was I supposed to do, hm? Refuse to talk to the kid like you do?" Timothy asks, ever logical.

Damian doesn't say anything for a moment, eyes trained on the skyline again. "Father," he swallows, "Father took Robin."

"I know, Da-"

" _It wasn't his to take_ ," he can't help but say, hoping Timothy ignores the hitch in his breath.

"I know, Damian," Timothy says, softly, hand gripping his own even tighter. "I'm sorry."

They both sit like that, for a few minutes, with the slowly lightening sky highlighting the horizon, till Timothy pipes up, voice taking on the teasing lilt from their childhood, "If it makes it any better, the Nightwing look suits you."

"Oh?" Damian asks, smile slanting when he looks down at the younger boy.

Timothy rolls his eyes, shoving him when he laughs.

~~~

The beeping of the heart monitor seems to get louder every second. _Beep beep beep, beep beep beep, beep be—_

Tim grabs the flower vase placed on the side table and throws it as hard as he can at the wall, gasping at the fresh wave of pain from his torso even as the glass shatters in hundreds of sparkling little pieces.

Damian chooses that exact moment to walk in. Their eyes meet for a second, before he side-steps the mess on the floor, and sits down carefully in the chair next to Tim's hospital bed. Tim doesn't say anything, and neither does he.

The clock keeps ticking, the monitor keeps fucking beeping. Tim wants to say something, but he doesn't know what. He wants _Damian_ to say something, to say _anything_ , but the man just sits, dark shadow marring his features.

It takes another five minutes of silence for Tim to break. "I've been here for two weeks."

Damian still doesn't reply, so Tim continues. "Why—why now?"

There's a moment where he thinks the man isn't going to reply, but eventually he rasps out, "Father stopped me. I wasn't able to get past his security until now."

"Why?" Tim frowns.

"I—" Damian looks out the window, before his eyes dart back to Tim, back to the blankets covering his legs. "I went after the Joker, again. I almost succeeded this time, too, so Father has been restricting my access in Gotham since he can't do anything to Nightwing."

The man's eyes are almost burning holes into his legs. Tim doesn't know what to say, so he just asks again, "Why?" Because he understands the first time Damian went after the Joker, after Jason, but this time it's just... well.

"Because he killed Batboy." Tim's eyes snap up, catch the fire in Damian's. "Because he ruined you."

"He...he didn't—"

Damian growls, hands twitching and suddenly the blanket is ripped off his legs. "Then get up. Get up, kick me, jump onto the roof, run down the fire escape- hell, just _walk_."

Tim swallows, eyes not moving from the unmoving limbs.

"That's what I thought."

Tim closes his eyes, takes a breath. "Get out."

He doesn't need to see the man's face to know the hint of regret that passes it. "Timot—"

The crash of another vase, this one ceramic, echoes through the hospital room. "Get out!"

Damian leaves, and two minutes later a nurse appears to bandage his bleeding hands.

~~~

It's been years since he was the hot headed child demanding a place in the Bat's legacy, but Damian can admit that his temper still needs... improvement, to say the least. God, the look on Timothy's face when he'd demanded he'd leave still makes Damian feel sick, and he's already thrown up twice since reaching his apartment.

But Bludhaven sleeps for no man, and so Damian suits up, the Nightwing suit that Timothy had helped him design feeling foreign on his skin as he takes to the sky, the wind whistling past his ears silent without the younger's laugh echoing through it.

Articles on how Nightwing has become more violent as of late begin circulating through the tabloids, but Damian can't find it in himself to care.

~~~

Tim spends exactly three week doing nothing after being released before the itching beneath his skin becomes too strong and he pulls up case file after case file, going through them like a breath of fresh air.

The job Dad had gotten him with R&D was nice and all, but it doesn't satisfy the detective in him (it doesn't give him the feeling of wind rushing through his hair either, but Tim tries to steer clear from that line of thinking).

Bruce finds him on day three of his spree, after his second upgrade to the Batcomputer's security system, but Tim can't exactly say he wasn't expecting it.

"Batboy."

"Not Batboy anymore, Batman."

Bruce pulls his cowl off, eyes sunken and dark. "You've been in the Batcomputer. And provided evidence for the resolution of a record total of a hundred and two cases in three days."

Tim sucks on his lip, finger tapping against the arm rest of his wheelchair. "Yes."

After another two minute stare-down, Bruce nods, pulling his cowl back on. An awkward hand rests on his shoulder. "I'm... I'm glad you're doing better, Tim."

Tim... Tim smiles. Bruce takes his leave.

The next week has Tim jumping onto Batman's comm sequence, almost startling the man into falling off WE's roof (footage Tim backed up onto three different hard drives). Bruce's relief is palpable when he taps the comm, "Tim?"

"Codenames, B," Tim says, activating another two cams.

A hesitant, "Batboy?"

Tim shakes his head, before remembering Bruce couldn't see him. "No. I was thinking something new."

"Oh?" Bruce asks, grunting as he lands on the street to the coordinates Tim had sent him, where he'd find the robber he'd been chasing for the better part of the hour.

"Yeah. I'm thinking something like," and he glances at the green decal sketched out with the charcoal pencils Damian had left in his apartment, "Oracle."

~~~

Tim knows it was only a matter of time till Damian found out, although he didn't exactly think it was going to go down like this.

He'd opened up a channel to inform Batman of a robbery going down south of the Diamond District, but instead of Bruce's deep voice stating an affirmative, he's met with-

" _Timothy?_ "

Tim turns the comm off. Maybe it's a bad move, but this isn't a conversation he can have over a comm.

Damian shows up to his base (it’s more just an abandoned space in the Gotham Clock Tower, but Tim's working on it) two hours later anyway. He can't get in through the security, though, and Tim watches his frustration grow until the man burns himself on a trick lock and he takes pity on him.

"Timothy." Damian's panting, must've run all the way here. Tim turns off the monitor tracking Nightwing's vitals and turns to face him.

"Damian."

"I'm sorry."

Tim turns around again and rolls out of the room, motioning for Damian to follow when he doesn't move. He maneuvers to the couch in the middle of the make-shift living room, hefting himself onto the cushions and curling up as he watches Damian stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. "You can sit, you know."

"Right." Damian sits down on the other end of the couch. "I—Timothy. I want to apologize. My... behaviour towards you was not, it was not acceptable, I did not mean to—I mean, I—"

He cuts himself off when Tim rests his head on his stiff shoulder, having scooted down the couch while the older man was stuttering. "It's okay, Damian. What you said, it hurt, and it sucked that you did that, but I've been... Well, I've been trying to stop living in the past."

Damian's arm comes up around him, and Tim leans a little more into him. "You are. You are amazing, Timothy. Beyond anything I could ever imagine, and I am truly sorry—"

This time it's Tim's finger that cuts him off, and Tim giggles a little when the man goes cross-eyes for a second trying to look down at it. "I know. And I forgive you, Dames."

"...You are too good." The _for me_ is unspoken, but Tim hears it anyway.

Damian leaves that night after their tea is made and cooled and drunk, after words are whispered, soft so as not to break the dark of the night. He leaves, but before Tim can unlock the window for him, he leans down, hesitantly, and they share a breath of air for one hanging second.

His soft lips finally brush Tim's cheeks, drawing up to his ear to whisper "I missed you," before he draws back again, eyes gentle with a vulnerability Tim has only seen a handful of times. Tim kisses the knuckles on the hand that doesn't have the fingerstripes on it yet, tucking a slip of paper with his contact scrawled on it into the man's palm, and smiles.

"Goodnight, Damian."

"Goodnight, Timothy."

**Author's Note:**

> requests are open till new years if u want to check out my tumblr ask box (@robinlikeitshot)!


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